The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, challenges the FEC’s treatment of the private Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) as non-partisan, citing the CPD’s use of polling criteria to effectively limit participation to only the Republican and Democrat candidates. Plaintiffs in the case include the Libertarian Party and the Green Party as well asLevel the Playing Field and noted supporter Peter Ackerman.

Johnson is the Honorary Chairman of the Our America Initiative, a nonprofit organization which is advocating a change in the Presidential debates. Johnson noted that in addition to the FEC lawsuit additional legal complaints will soon be filed to challenge the Commission on Presidential Debate”s control over the Presidential debates.

In a statement released Monday, the former New Mexico Governor said, “The last time a third party or independent candidate was allowed to participate in nationally televised general election presidential debates was 1992. The reason is simple. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which controls the debates, was created by the Republican and Democrat Parties and remains under that two-party control today. This lawsuit against the FEC is an important step toward stripping the veneer off the CPD and treating it as what it really is: A partisan organization that exists to protect the two-party dominance of the political process.

“By opening another ‘front’ in the battle against unfairly limited presidential debates, this recent FEC legal challenge strengthens the soon-to-be-filed second lawsuit being coordinated by the Our America Initiative, and adds credible voices to the growing discontent with the CPD’s persistent exclusion of qualified third party and independent candidates from the nationally-televised debate stage.”

The Our America Initiative’s legal team, along with Dr. Jill Stein and key advisors, will host a Google Hangout Wednesday, May 13, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. MT to present a status update and briefing regarding plans to change the Presidential debates.

In addition to Dr. Stein, the 2012 Green Party presidential candidate, the online briefing will include Our America Initiative attorney Rocky Anderson, former Salt Lake City mayor, presidential candidate and respected public interest attorney.

The Green Party and the Libertarian Party have joined together to challenge the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Libertarian and Green party nominees were excluded from CPD-sponsored presidential and vice-presidential debates in 2012, despite appearing on enough states’ presidential ballots to potentially achieve a majority in the Electoral College.

Yesterday, May 4, 2015, Republican Carly Fiorinaofficially declared she is running for president in the 2016 general election. This brings the total women who have officially declared their presidential run to six in a widening field for the office.

Fiorina and Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, are the two most talked about women in the mainstream media. There is also the highly qualified Jill Stein from the Green party and three other female candidates running without a political party. The independents are Tami Stainfeld, Samm Tittle and Lynn Sandra Kahn. Although the Libertarian Party has had female presidential candidates seek the party’s nomination in the past, we have not yet seen any officially announced.

Hillary Clinton may face three other women for a Democratic Party showdown of estrogen at the 2016 primaries with potential female candidates Clare McCaskill, Amy Klobuchar and/or Janet Napolitano. Jill Stein may have competition with Cynthia McKinney who is another female considering a run for the Green Party’s nomination.

I first came to know ISIDEWITH.COM during the 2012 election cycle and found it to be an unbiased and refreshing example of how American’s genuinely felt about issues and candidates. It is too bad American voters will not utilize this tremendous resource, instead of be influenced by doublespeak on the campaign trail of so many candidates. It is my genuine belief, isidewith.com should be every American’s voter guide as it deals with the issues as opposed to candidate and party rhetoric.

From a general perspective, I thought it would be neat to show you where I stand with the different political parties – as per isidewith.com. Look for future articles about isidewith.com by putting that term in the search box to the right of this article.

This past weekend thousands enjoyed the Free & Equal sponsored festival, United We Stand. The festival was to promote the idea Americans should have free and equal access to Libertarian Party (LP) and other minor party candidates. The organization was responsible for putting on the popular third party debates moderated by Larry King, during the 2012 presidential election when LP candidate Gary Johnson was excluded from participating with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Free & Equal’s founder and Chair, Christina Tobin overcomes huge odds and puts on first class event in Los Angeles to educate the public of the importance to include all the candidates in debates and general news coverage.

Recently Bay 9 News removed the Libertarian candidate for Florida’s U.S. Senate from an online poll they were conducting once they found him doing too well. The last time the poll showed Alexander Snitker’s name was when he was at 14% and rising, then the poll stopped showing his name and replaced it with “Other”, causing two “Other” to be listed in the online poll. Here is Snitker’s press release on the manipulation. “Fringe” candidates have learned to take screen captures from mainstream media websites as the media often manipulates what the public gets to see in favor of more mainstream candidates. So even if the public is crying out for different flavors, the mainstream media is set to only offer vanilla or chocolate. A quick search on Bay News 9’s website of Snitker’s name shows 12 results, mostly just listing of the candidates and no ‘real’ stories. Rubio shows 605 listings, Crist shows 1,780, Meek shows 701, DeCastro shows 44 mentions (again, mostly just listing of candidates and no stories). It is clear Bay News 9 has a bias toward three candidates for the U.S. Senate seat and this example can be repeated at media outlets across Florida. The large difference in Crist’s results are understandable as he is the current Governor of Florida so one would expect there to be many more mentions of his name.

Even WPEC Channel 12 in Palm Beach County, owned by a supposed libertarian-minded company, won’t mention candidates outside the spectrum of the “big” three and often states there are only three candidates running for U.S. Senate in Florida – a serious breach of their duty to voters in South Florida and frankly an outright lie to the public. Doing a search on their website for stories involving the candidates today showed the following results:Charlie Crist 577 items found, Kendrick Meek 24 items found, Rubio 39 items found, Snitker ZERO items found, Bernie DeCastro ZERO items found. So even a libertarian-minded media outlet won’t mention the libertarian candidate. One could almost understand if Snitker was some kind of wacko, however he’s not. He’s a legitimate candidate and Marine veteran who makes intelligent speeches all over Florida during the race.